Erik P. Goldschmidt is director of the Church in the 21st Century Initiative at Boston College. Its research includes the state of Catholic ministry in America.

John T. McGreevy is a respected historian of U.S. Catholicism. He is history professor and dean of Notre Dame’s College of Arts and Letters at Notre Dame University in Indiana.

James O’Toole is a history professor at Boston College who specializes in American Catholic history and popular devotional practices.

James P. Sterba is a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. He has written about animal rights and environmental ethics.

David H. Smith is a professor emeritus of religious studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind. He has studied religious and medical ethics.

William Greenway is an associate professor of philosophical theology at the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas. He is a member of the Christian Vegetarian Association.

Read a September 2005 Christianity Today article on New Monasticism.

Read an account of the New Monasticism movement in the fall 2005 issue of the journal Divinity from the Duke Divinity School.

A Feb. 18, 2005, New York Times article describes an Eastern Catholic Maronite monastery in Massachusetts that offers spiritual retreats. The story also has links to other monasteries around the country that open their doors to the public for spiritual retreats.